my name's Andrew Hy and I'm the dean of the University of London Institute in [Music] Paris I first came to the city as a teenager and I've had a big connection with it ever since now I live and work here I still love the place and I'm still fascinated by it but these days I travel around Paris not just for pleasure but also to explore the places that Inspire my writing about the city but there's still one trip in Paris that I always make with a fair amount of trepidation and that's here to the [Music] lou as you can see the Lou is Big brooding and vast and to be honest I've always been quite intimidated by this most massive of museums but in this film I want to change the way that I and maybe you see it too so I want you to come with me on a tour of this extraordinary institution and to do a little bit of time traveling in French history on the way I'm going to try and make sense of a place that's jam-packed with over 35,000 pieces of art that you'll find in mile after mile after mile of [Music] galleries it's a building that's over 800 years old and bured with history so come with me and see the LOF transformed from a medieval Fortress to a royal palace and then to a modern day Museum we'll look at the great art of Da Vinci Ruben David and Jer Co will enjoy the glories of antiquity and will explain why the Magnificent artworks you can see today arrived in the museum and what they tell us about both the L and [Music] France I want to argue that if you know the secrets of the Lou know its history know the Glorious art Within These Walls then I think you can understand France [Music] the Lou well there's lots and lots and lots and lots of art here so where to begin well why not start with one of the oldest paintings in the museum from the 15th century a work of art with a gruesome subject that will give us our first clue to the Lou's long history look at this this is a painting called La crucifix and there's a lot of interesting stuff going on here here here in the foreground for example this bloke with his head in his hands that's sand who was one of the patron saints of Paris sandon was mared in the 3rd Century beheaded on The High Ground above the city the present day K of MRA but his is not the only image of suffering at the center of the painting is Christ on the cross on one side of him is a grieving virgin mother comforted by Mary Magdalene on the other St John the Evangelist and this is art with a purpose it was deliberately hung in the main chamber of the paron de a reminder to lawmakers to show due humility in the face of divine [Music] justice but one other detail provides an insight into more Earthly matters of bricks and mortar this is the best approximation of what the lra would have looked like to Medieval pisans what what they saw was a fortress a citadel of military power the medieval L was built strategically close to the river sen along the walls of the medieval city a 30 m Tower looked out to the west and the enemy the English on a border sometimes only 45 miles away the castle dominated the prian skyline a very visible and very deliberate assertion of French [Music] power on the outside of today's Museum there are a few Clues to what lies underneath the opening of a well and a cesspit below there are the thick strong walls and Tall Palisades that defended the capan and Vala kings of France from their enemies this is the L onol the basement of the museum and 30 years ago excavations took place here which revealed these walls which show just how forbidding the lra was in its original medieval Incarnation now there's been a lot of debate over the meaning of the word lra but I'm going to go with the old French term louve which means Fortress or stronghold because I think that that pretty much sums up the place and its [Music] history when the Renaissance came to France in the 16th century this military Fortress became a royal palace of great style and [Music] culture in the museum today is the portrait of the man who began this trans this is fr prier King of France and the first great builder of the Lou it was painted around 1530 by the artist Jean CL and it's a portrait of a real renaissance man he's a fighter check out the hand on the sword ever ready but he's also a lover of culture and so it's a picture of refinement check out the tasteful clothes he is every inch as the French would say say a man alod F Premier began the tradition the French Kings should be both coniss of Art and patrons of artists in 1516 he persuaded an elderly Leonardo dichi to leave Italy the painting days of the great genius were over but it's thought that he brought with him you know who [Applause] this painting that Millions come to see today was the first ever work of art to enter the French Royal [Music] collection ah monaa monaa that smile that smile enigmatic mysterious tender or mock they have blamed you what is it about that smile I asked the Lou's cator of Renaissance Art Van did you the problem I've got with deona Lisa is that she's such a big media star what you have to do is to try and forget that she's such a big star and really get into the painting get up close and love it for what it is and she definitely invites us to love [Music] her it's such an incredible ability of the painter to portray that most difficult and subtle of human Expressions the smile there are a thousand ways of interpreting a smile and that was the genius of Leonardo to be able to capture such a subtle and Rich human expression she such a flirt of course she's a huge flirt the French like that sort of thing but hey you're not completely Untouched by her are you [Music] mon now what else is there left to say about this painting only that in the 16th century l called as it's known in France was something quite new in Western Art the idea of creating a sense of contact between the viewer and the subject had never been done before or the open posture with her hands turned towards us she's greeting us as if we were in her Palace in her room even and it's even smiling at us that technique of drawing the viewer directly into the painting was hugely innovative is all this a new departure for Western AR absolutely how many politicians portraits have you seen in the style of lashon everyone uses Leonardo's style from the framing to the posture to the direct approach of the subject to the audience so how influential was this approach to portraiture at the time well let's go back to to the portrait of fris had its creator Jean CL seen the monaa we don't actually know but FR does look as straight in the eye his body's turned towards the viewer and His Hands face the same way as Da Vinci's Florentine [Music] lady and as with her we're drawn towards the personality of the king [Music] fat was not only a patron of the Arts but a builder of palaces he' spent some time in Italy and he wanted to emulate the style of the Renaissance pazi so the medieval Tower was pulled down moats were filled in and a courtyard built the cor car overlooked by this imposing and ornamented facade and within the king demanded a makeover of gloomy Royal [Music] Apartments this is the SED and I think it's a place that best captures the spirit and feeling of the Renaissance Lou it's a vision of Science and nature in Harmony and it signals the beginning of the French classical tradition you can see its expression in the four sculptures by Jean guong which give the room its name these are the four k they have a function as pillars but they're also works of art in themselves beautifully sculptured forms every curve and fold capturing a fleshy Alo and they stand Sentinel to An Elegant stairway that reveals to us yet another Treasure of the LOF if we look around here we'll see images also sculptured by Jeong guong and they give us pointers to the man who commissioned this passageway between the first and second floors of the palace he and his mistress have a lover hunting and here look at this letter H that's a Roy monogram a kind of graphiti tack chiseled in stone and the H stands for hre D who succeeded froad d both within and without every ruler who wanted to use the Lou as a symbol of their power would leave their Mark in this way so the walls read like an alphabet designed for [Music] posterity the Renaissance Lou was a place of great culture but it was also the location for great great violence during the infamous St Bartholomew's Eve Massacre when religious war between Catholics and Hugo Protestants threatened to tear France apart the palace was witnessed to Great Horror that began with the most familiar of sounds from the nearby Church of sanj Lo in the early hours of the 24th of August 1572 the sound of monks telling the bell for Matan could be heard as usual throughout the streets of Paris but this particular morning this normally reassuring sound was the cue for Slaughter to begin of Protestants by Catholics was the Battle Cry kill them [Music] all rer on L Daniel suier told me about the moment the very heart of power in France became a killing [Music] field these windows were the Queen's rooms and so all the key decisions surrounding the St Bartholomew Massacre would have taken place just meters above where we now sat say we know that many people were killed here in the courtyard of the Lou they were slightly hesitant to kill people in the actual Royal Apartments so we imagine that they dragged a lot of people out here in order to kill them there's another story that people tell where the king at the time Charles I 9th sat in a balcony window with a crossbow firing down upon Hugo who were trying to escape on the river [Music] sen there was a survivor of this terrible day in the L A Hugo Prince of the blood HRI of naar days before the massacre Ari had married the sister of Charles the 9th margarit de valoir 20 years later the couple were king and queen of France the last fak king had died childless and hrii next in line to the throne became the first ruler of a new Dynasty the Bon but to become Ori Katra for all of France and crowned as such in Paris a deal needed to be struck Ori would have to convert to Catholicism they passed through here the host sanon which is just opposite the lra heading for notam to hear mass and this was on the 22nd of March 1594 he did this because as we know to give France peace and unity it was worth a [Applause] mass a statue of onat is on the PO Nerf which was itself completed in his Reign to connect the right and left banks of the sen but the King was also determined to make his mark on the Royal Palace nearby a wanted to link the Lou to the recently built Palace of the twery nearby so to connect the two palaces he ordered this built the gr Gallery a name was now given to this grandiose vision of expansion the gr desan the great plan as you can see it's all conceived on the grandest scale it's half a mile from there to there for example and the idea was that this is a place of entertainment and magnificent spectacle you could come here for example to watch the water pageant on the sen but it's also a mystical space a Sacred Space it's where oriat and the bourbon Kings who came after him literally believed that they had the Divine Touch they believed most importantly that they could cure people of the disase disase of scrofula which is a really nasty kind of tuberculosis of the neck what would happen is that the king would receive people and say the king touches you God cures you either way I hope it [Music] worked now there is a clue to A's life and loves in the L it's a painting that's not in one of the main galleries where thousands gather to look at The Usual Suspects but if you find this mysterious and striking work of art you won't be disappointed this is Gabrielle Dray and her sister Gabrielle Dray was the Mistress of O Catra and as they say Every Picture Tells a Story have a look at the gestures Gabrielle's sister is holding her nipple between thumb and finger to indicate that she's pregnant with the King's son the future Duke Dev vondom and Gabrielle's also holding a bed Band of Gold it's not worn on her finger to symbolize a marriage but it's thought to be the king's coronation ring a token of his love and his loyalty the two women are sitting in a bath perhaps fil will m milk or wine as was the aristocratic custom both are beautifully made up to show off their white Alabaster faces women of the time actually would crush up the inets of swallows and mix them with lies ground pearls and CER then smear the paste on their faces to get this ghostly look this didn't seem to dampen the ardor of HRI who couldn't resist Gabrielle she bore him three other children before her sudden death in 1599 O's own life also came to an abrupt end on the streets of Paris on the 14th of May 1610 one of his greatest achievements was to have guaranteed the religious Liberties of protestant ugu but for such tolerance he would never be forgiven by those who saw themselves as holy Warriors for the true faith of Rome the funloving Henry came to a gory and violent end that was here on the HUD this was where a religious fanatic called Fran ravak pulled back the blinds of the carriage that the King was traveling in and plunged a long knife three times deep into his chest the assassination of En left uncertainty over who would now rule France here's the story in paint of the woman who did here in the Lou are 24 canvases devoted to the life of Marie deichi or's second wife as Regent the queen had many enemies she needed to legitimize her grip on power so she turned to the weapon of Art and the greatest painter of the day Peter Paul Rubin I talked to Creator Blaze Duo about the biggest painting here showing the Queen's coronation here the first big impression is one of a great movement over towards the main focus of the painting which is of course mared deichi in the process of being crowned in the sandini Basilica the day before the assassination of hry C you can even see him in the background but very much recognizable watching the queen and in the process giving her the sense of legitimacy that without she wouldn't have been able to govern and Rule as [Music] Regent this is painting on the grandest of scales this is the art of the Barack with its extravagant use of movements and color and its feeling of sensuality and all of this simply leaps out here it's a piece of theater in many senses and you have to look at it that way they're very theatrical paintings very barck and of course rubben was the great Barack painter and it was the sheer monumentality of the book that fired the imagination of the next ruler of France to mold the L in his own [Music] image this is the famous portrait of Lou K byan Ru he was the Sun King the leim champion of bling he was the bourbon who brought new levels of pump and Grandeur to the lou but to my mind there's something over the top even desperately Camp about this painting have a look at the big hair the shoes the clothes the rich rich colors all of it seems to be screaming luxury and power but after all that's what it was all about during the early years of Louis reain the L echoed to the sounds of thousands of laborers Masons and joiners working to create new facades stos elaborate carved ceilings and wood paneling work started on an opposing facade on the outside of the K this colonade would look out and prian would look up to the palace with due difference and awe here in the K car Louie completed the building work begun by his father he quadrupled the size of this Courtyard to the dimensions you see today and with one Express aim to make the l a bigger and more imposing [Music] place and inside a royal waiting room was built the to wow impressional visitors to the Royal Palace just off the Rond a spectacular Gallery was built the Gallerie Deon designed by the king's architect Lou lau and I'm looking around because everything here has got a kind of mythical or allegorical meaning and all of that is literally revolving around the king himself and just look at this place it's Splendid it's glittering with all this gold Glory it really is you know the personification of what it means to be the Sun King every image here reinforces the assertion that the King was Godlike the center of the universe looking down from high on a country where he and he alone had absolute power with a rule over France that could never ever be questioned by mere [Music] mortals and likee his illustrious predecessor frois Louie was not only a builder but some with a huge appetite for collecting art the Charles satchi if you like of the 17th century during his Reign the size of the raw collection expanded from 150 to exactly 2,376 paintings he bought the best French art of his time 32 p 11 CLA 26 LeBron and 17 Min and foreign masterpieces like this lovely but somber painting the death of the Virgin by Caravaggio all now hang here in what was his [Music] Lou the Lou was a luxurious play thing for Louis the 14th but there was one big problem it was in Paris and he hated Paris but funny enough the parisians also hated him so what happened in 1670 was that Louis the 14th left Paris for Veri in a great big Splendid Royal huff and he hardly ever set foot in the place again but he didn't leave empty-handed he took all of his artworks with him with the exit of Louis the 14th of Si the Gonda was put on hold much of the building work remained unfinished the colonade was left without a roof throughout the 18th century the Lou had a much more ramshackle feel to it and it echoed to a more plean cacophony of sounds and voices the gr Gallery changed from being the preserver of Royals and Aristocrats and became instead the center for artistic hustling in Paris this is where you'd find engravers hard at work furniture makers makers of the very finest hats it was a place of great energy bustle and commerce but the most important thing that happened here was that by Royal warrant artists were allowed to come and live here and they copied paintings and then they made their own art and this was the moment when the Lou properly became a senser for cultural Exchange in the endless Carnival of prian [Music] life as the palace began to open its doors to vulgar Outsiders the Pres of the Royal Academy of painting and sculpture in the king's former Apartments still preserved a sense of decorum and gravitas in the LOF first in the gr Gallery then here in the souc The Academy held an annual then banial exhibition starting on St Louis day 25th of August the salon was open to the public the idea of showing art to all who wish to come was novel and proved fantastically [Music] popular events at the salon was something to be argued about in another institution forever dear to all parisians this was the first ever Coffee House in Paris opening to customers in 1686 from the word go the cafe PR up attracted intellectuals in the 18th century the great Phil off of the Enlightenment came here and amongst them was someone very important to our story behind me here this is Denny d now Deo wrote penetrating critiques of the salon and in doing so he effectively invented art [Music] criticism and he threw down a challenge to artists with an ambition to impress him at the salom first of all move me surprise me Rend my heart make me tremble weep shudder outrage me and Delight my eyes afterwards if you [Music] can Dio was delighted by one artist whose wonderful and poignant self-portrait you can find in the Lou and this is the painter Jean Baptist Simo shaam shaam did this pastel drawing himself when when he was 76 and the infirmity of old age had stopped him painting in oils in his still lives shaan was painting on a much smaller scale than a rubin's and the canvases of shaan have an apparent Simplicity about them but this art is not simplistic and in these paintings small not big is [Music] beautiful the work of sha down mesmerized dero who saw something magical at work oh Shada it's not white red and black that you're mixing on your palette it's the very substance of objects it's the very air and light that you put on the tip of your brush and place on the canvas I talked to curator Mari cine Su about shown and what he taught did all Shan's efforts went into the magic of turning the inanimate everyday objects into beautiful artwork and for Dro I think it was all about entering into the paintings and the mindset of shardan and trying to find out what it was that made it so magical the word magic is in fact used a number of times by dero and shardan taught him to go right up to a painting that when you get up close to a painting it ceases to have any significant meaning it becomes just streaks of paint and then gradually As you move away from it everything slowly creeps into [Music] Focus there's one painting of shardan I especially wanted to look at here the one that's considered his Masterpiece the ray yes it is still life but with such energy and motion look at the cat about to pounce on the [Music] oysters but what really draws the eye is the eviscerated form of the rayfish [Music] I think shadan created a true character of the ray personified in many senses with a seemingly tragic character he uses the form of the ray this triangular shape that you see but also its whiteness to construct his painting and then there's a semblance of a face that many people read into the painting which is in fact neither the mouth nor the eyes but the gills it's a sort of anthropomorph moric vision of this Ray which is of course also rather dramatic with its insides coming out rened whatever genius we now recognize in the still lives of shaan this style of art was seen by the academy as inferior to the more high-minded genre of History [Music] painting Works inspired by the past can be seen in the salou where hang the creations of one artist who in the late 18th century received the Acclaim of the salon with paintings that look back to Antiquity as a source of moral instruction to the present this is the self-portrait of the artist who features in the next part of our story it's Jac L David and it captures him at a bad moment in his life when he was in prison during the French Revolution but the Curious Thing is the expression on his face is he angry is he frightened or is this the self-regard of the tormented artist he was certainly vain enough but we're getting ahead of ourselves in 1784 David painted this the oath of the heri and he did it for the man who' given him a studio and lodgings in the Lou Louis the 16th it tells the story of Three Brothers sworn to defend Rome look at the outstretched arms reaching towards their father who holds the weapons of war in his hand and look at the way the picture splits in two between its masculine and feminine characters the style is simple AER with somber colors the painting took the salon of 1785 by storm hailed as an instant Masterpiece of neoclassical art but what meaning did it have from the monar who paid for it and for others who saw it everyone agreed it was a patriotic painting but was there something more subversive going on here addressed to those now seeing themselves as Citizens because this was a painting whose message would change during a turbulent decade of French history just under 10 years after David had painted the O of thei his Patron the King was dead he was sent to the guillotine hero plast La Concord and this was the most shocking moment yet in the drama of the Revolution that had begun with the storming of the basti on a windy morning on January 21st 1793 Louis V 16th mounted the scaffold watched by thousands there was a roll of drums and then the 12-in blade fell as was the custom the severed head dripping with blood was held aoft for display to the citizens of the first French Republic and so began the T with 18,000 men and women were sent to the guillotine and David now an elected Deputy to the National Convention was up to his neck in it David voted for the killing of the king and eagerly signed arrest warrants so that others could go to their deaths when Roes Spear's great rival donon went to his death David was there shouting out mockingly he look at the criminal who thinks he's the big Judge David became rosier's cultural commisar he demanded that artists be at the service of the people the meaning of their art appropriated for the Revolution and David included his own art in this command so when his Masterpiece the oath of the heresi was shown again it was interpreted as a work of revolutionary virtue with Oaths to La patri much and a Tastee for [Music] martydom but what paintings like this needed was a public place to educate loyal citizens of the Republic so David and fellow revolutionaries turned to an idea proposed by Enlightenment thinkers like Dido who'd advocated that a permanent exhibition space be created a museum so where on the 10th of August 1793 exactly 12 months after the fall of thean regime the lra was declared Muse de the people's Museum and the ceremony took place here in the grand Gallery what actually happened was that all art in France was nationalized all art in fact in the territories that France also had its eye on so what happened really was that from the Royal collection in Versa from churches from Aristocrats from Exiles all art now being belonged to the people L patri this was brutal and necessary argued the likes of David and his fellow revolutionaries but what was really happening was a seismic shift in European history this was the moment when art ceased to be The Preserve of the rich and the wealthy and was really at the service of the people the new Museum worked to the Revolutionary 10day week the first six were reserved for artists who are at Liberty to take paintings off the walls to copy free to put chalk marks on the canvases then the Lou was open three days to the public with a last day for cleaning and repairs and to add to the galleries of confiscated art the Revolutionary Army was given the order to seize new Treasures during their campaigns abroad on the 27th of July 1798 on the anniversary of the fall of robs an extraordinary procession of revolutionary booty from Italy made its way across Paris and it ended up here on the shond there were 80 wagons stuffed to the gills with books manuscripts rare plants and exotic animals and there were also paintings from church and aristocratic collections including tisan and Raphael whose ultim destination was the Lou on a banner proclaimed the slogan of the day at last they're in a free [Music] country today there are works of extraordinary beauty for us to enjoy in the lva and all because of this revolutionary plundering there are sculptures by Michelangelo the dying and the rebellious slaves they were taken from the Vatican in [Music] Rome and from the Benedictine Monastery of San Georgio magor in Venice was seized this vast canvas the wedding Feast at Kaa by veroni its life-size figures have been dominating the refectory for over 200 [Music] years the painting was so big it had to be cut into two to make the journey by mule across the [Music] Alps van knows the painting intimately when we take a step back and get a sense of the perspective there are the columns reaching out at the back which give it amplitude and of course there's the color the greens the Blues and the Reds all bouncing off and complimenting each other it's extraordinary across the painting it's the little hidden gems that I love all the little details and there's even a musical performance going on here in the [Music] foreground and there's a woman over here that's looking straight at us as if flirting with us next to the one picking her teeth all of these amusing little bits and pieces even the slightly Sterner men you can see this chap over here who's holding himself very distant and severe those that look like they're about to fall asleep because of the alcohol it's such a vibrant painting almost noisy if you will but in the end what I find extraordinary is the figure smack bang in the middle of the painting this is the haloed figure of Jesus Christ with the Virgin Mary by his side staring into space oblivious to the rry around [Music] him perhaps the message here is simple all this pleasure around me is ephemeral what I bring you is eternal [Music] [Applause] [Music] by 1798 when this booty reached Paris the Revolutionary ardor of David indeed of France had cooled after the fall of robp David was arrested and put in prison where this self-portrait was painted so perhaps this gaze shows a certain skepticism and distaste for the ru old trade of politics but if David was anything he was a Survivor and on his release the painter was ready to ride the next wave of History time to offer his talents to the next strong man of France [Music] David found himself at the becking call of a man who said that he didn't know much about art and architecture but he didn't know exactly what it meant when it came to buffing up his image this was a man who'd been a military hero During the Revolution then after the cou that ended the directory he was a first conso he was the Des spot who crowned himself Emperor yes Napoleon [Music] bonapart if you visit Napoleon's tomb here at lean valed in Paris you can see enshrined in Marble evidence that the loua was important to [Music] Napoleon I love this this is this is the celebration of Napoleon's public achievements it's look upon my works you tourists and be impressed and either side there a there's a list of everything that he's achieved as public works and in the center of it there's once Napoleon had absolute power in France he wasted little time in using the L for the purposes of self-promotion the dictator ordered that the Revolutionary Museum now be called The Muse Napoleon and he had this mini and first Arc the Triumph erected here in front of the louvra on the carousel as a monument to his martial Glory on top were beautiful Bronze Statues of horses plundered from St Mark's Square in Venice friezes celebrated Napoleon's many military campaigns and there's this inscription dedicated to the Austrian campaign and the decisive French victory at the Battle of aitz Napoleon put his imprints on walls and ceilings with the letter n and his chosen images of bees and Eagles and he needed a painter to immortalize the most sacred moments of his life in the most sacred spaces on 18th of December 1803 a proclamation declared n MAV much to the immense self-satisfaction of David he was now our first painter and in 1804 we had a job for him Napoleon made sure that David his court painter witnessed the moment that he crowned himself Emperor here in notra Dam on the 2nd of December 1804 originally David had a ringside view for his sketch him but then the Master of Ceremonies an aristocrat called L Philip deur who's very conscious of class and rank moved David right up into the galleries right high up where he could neither see the procession nor crucially could he see the crowning well when this happened and David exploded he went mad there was a fight real fisty cuffs and it was only after this punch up that David got his rifle placed back the rest of course is art history but you know talk about an artistic temperament the finished works in the [Music] Lou and it's a piece of work on a huge scale which to detail that's important and this is what preoccupied David and Napoleon when they met to discuss the painting [Music] David captured the moment that Napoleon crowned Josephine Queen no his own coronation her kneeling figure was copied from Ruben's coronation of Marie dimichi and by the way she's had years taken offer by David's painterly facelift originally David had painted the pope with his hands folded in his lap until the emperor explained that he hadn't got the pontif all the way from the Vatican just to sit and do nothing so deid changed this to Pope Pas iith blessing the [Music] coronation and there's Mischief here too look at the Wy surviv tal and his Turned Up Nose this is the man that bonapart famously called a piece of [ __ ] in a Silk Stocking the female figure on the balcony that's Napoleon's mother who could couldn't stand Josephine and actually wasn't there on the big day but on instruction David put her in the picture anyway and there of course Sketchbook in hand is the great artist himself despite the success of this painting there was a prickly relationship between David and the courtiers around the emperor this picture was meant to be the first of four celebrating the coronation but the project was never completed after squabbles about money so it's perhaps no coincidence that in 1806 the great General gave David and fellow painters their marching orders they had just 24 hours to pack up their studios in the cor and get out and when Napoleon married for the second time in 1810 David wasn't asked to record the ceremony when it took place in the louv the close relationship between painter and despot was over as their fortunes declined David to new Rivals with new ideas about art Napoleon to the hubris that led to his fall from power and the return of the Boral monarchy the rule of Napoleon was ended in 1815 with the Battle of waroo and the restoration of the bourbon dynasty was secured the Lou was renamed lumu eight white and all of the visual propaganda changed too out went the Napoleonic an and the bees and the Eagles that have been his symbol and in came the image of the Lily and the monogram LL for Louis the 18th and there was other interesting stuff if you look up here you can see that this is the face of Napoleon what happened was that the new king had a wig placed on bonap part's head transforming him into the image of his illustrious forbear Louis the 14th the restoration was a challenging period for the Lou forced to concede to demands the 5,000 pieces of plundered art be returned the bronze horses on top of the Arc of Triumph went back to Venice and were replaced by these gray imitations some Treasures did Remain the wedding at Kana was kept simply too big to be moved again the museum argued [Music] an elderly David was now in Exile like his former Patron bonapart but a new generation of painters was emerging and producing stunning works of art one is to be found in the [Music] salou this painting L DEA the raft of the Medusa by Jero is one of the great Treasures of the Lou it was the talk of the salon when it was first exhibited in 1819 and it was very quickly acquired by the then director of the lra the K of fan I I think it's an extraordinary complex painting it's realistic but it's not quite real you've got these human bodies constructed as a kind of pyramid it's very romantic it's about human suffering but also about the impossibility of Hope but what what you really feel is that you're in the painting you're in that pyramid of of human suffering and you can see the kind of forensic nature of Jericho's work he was the kind of man who spent hours in moreres and hospitals sketching out dead bodies and he wasn't even afraid to take home the the limbs to work out the tricky bits and that's what makes this painting So Stark so powerful there was no bigger Scandal than the Shipwreck of the frig medus off the West African Coast G Captain by the hapless viant Shari of the 147 crew only 13 survived this was headline news and the public lapped up lurid Tales of cannibalism and Madness such a juicy story translated to canvas could only be good for the career of the 20-year-old artist I asked curator Sebastian alar about the painting it was and has been taken as a form of allegory since Jero was depicting a ship that was wrecked as a direct result of the incompetence of its Captain survivors were stranded on a raft without food water or hope and people took all this as an illusion to the French state after the fall of the Empire governed by incompetence there were more intense romantic sensibilities at work [Music] here we can see here a taste for rather dark and Sinister painting that's in stark contrast to the relatively clear and bright paintings of David and which of course acts as a tool towards the dramatic effect of the painting and it's a rather maab Style with a partial for death and corpses as well as bringing the best of Contemporary Art into the Lou these Decades of the restoration saw the arrival from Egypt of mysterious and magical objects that were old yet very new on the 25th of October 1836 the great Obelisk behind here was unveiled it came from a temple in Luxo and was the gift of the kif of Egypt its original base featured monkeys who had suspiciously large erections and obviously this had to be replaced by something much more AER in Granite and fashioned in Britany but nonetheless this latest Monument was a great success and the most important thing was that it announced a new Mania in France for all things Oriental the manner arranged the passage of the oist to Paris and who brought so much to the story of the L was Jean franois [Music] Chon now shonan worked here in the loua and he established the superb stunning collection that we see here today but not only that shampon was the first person to decipher hieroglyphics and in doing so he invented the science of egyptology inspired by Napoleon's Egyptian campaigns Shon devoted his life to understanding this ancient Culture by the age of 16 he knew a dozen ancient languages and with this extraordinary facility he began the long task of deciphering hieroglyphs in 1824 in the Prem heroglyph shono revealed that he had cracked these hidden codes by this time shum had persuaded the king to buy three private collections for the L and these were housed in a dedicated Muse Egyptian when it opened shuno wrote an open letter to visitors saying I'm thrilled just thinking about what I have to show you and he was dead right to be thrilled along with statues of Egyptian pharaohs there were religious artifacts and everyday objects today we take these for granted but in 1826 this was the shock of the new we should pause to reflect on this moment in our story because it signals another important transformation for the [Music] Lou before it was a palace with paintings now it's what we Reon ized properly as a museum full of works of art from all ages and cultures and a place for scholarly investigation in its way this was a cultural [Music] revolution and speaking of Revolution what had happened to the French tast [Music] after 15 years of monarchy the barricades went up in Paris for 3 days between the 27th and the 29th of July 1830 there was street fighting across the city to challenge the autocratic rule of Charles I 10th L glor as it was known in Revolutionary folklore is naturally commemorated here with this fine and thrusting monument at plast la bastile but one young French artist wanted to do things his own way to commemorate this July Revolution he wanted something more sweeping more daring something more epic and what he did is in the Lou 28th of July LIberty Leading the People by euen dequa is to be found in the [Music] sge in 1830 d chir had written to his brother that he was taking on a modern subject a barricade if I havn't fought for my country at least I'll paint for her the painting that emerged from his Studio was the hit of the sadom it's realistic dqu used real people as models to depict real events but it's also allegorical there's bare breasted Maran Bayon nuted musket in one hand the trickle flag of the Republic in the other the personification of Liberty and Revolution this Republican Amazon leads young and old and all classes to the barricades here the top hated figure of some means and here the pistol packing student at their feet the dead a royalist national Guardsman and this semi- naked figure surely copied from jao's raft of the Medusa that Dela knew so well and it all takes place against the smoking backdrop of Paris the Republican flag hanging from nraam in the distance and the colors used here red white and blue of course there is perhaps no more iconic image in all of French [Music] history and it didn't take long for the street fighting men and women commemorated by dlaa to be at it again as KL Marx observed history was repeating itself revolution in 1848 was in that very French way followed by reaction the nephew of Napoleon Louis bonapart came to Power by kud that ended the short-lived second Republic and like his Uncle he declared himself emperor of a Second [Music] Empire at the heart of this Empire would be a city of gr bouv and buildings built by Baron Houseman and the Lou was to become the symbol of a modernized Paris in 1852 a new lou project was announced that would complete the grand desan by connecting both sides of the Lou to the Palace of the twer the old tenament buildings and stalls that have been part of the site for centuries were bulldozed to make way for this vision of the [Music] future the Lou was once more to be a focus for political power the emperor would rule from here it would be the site of government with bureaucrats in the new Wings working away for France and it would be a symbol of French cultural power with its magnificent Museum the sheer ambition of this project was explained to me by Danielle suier we say in France that Napoleon really gave the full packet it was a full-on imperial project he threw Limitless money Limitless people and Limitless resources at it the emperor had a hand in everything that happened in the Lou so all possibilities were open he ordered that where the little town had sprung up here behind us the Reish Wing should be built and the D wing on the other side over here with these two new Wings he was able to enclose the space and create a courtyard of vast proportions right at the center of the building [Music] Grandeur on the outside was reinforced by opulence within again no expense was spared just look at all this luxury the walls the fittings the carpets and the furniture what does it remind you of yes Louis the 14th and that was deliberate this second empire style was a self-conscious and said vulgar way of aping the Sun King but Louis bonapart wanted everybody to know that his loua was as much a glittering reflection of his Imperial Eminence as any in the [Music] past but the destruction of the old loua was mourned by one poet and [Music] critic Char bodler was a regular visitor to the museum it was a warm and comfortable place to meet his mother he once took a five Frank [ __ ] to look at the ancient statues she professed to be scandalized by the nudity bodair was a great admirer and friend of D laqua who in 1851 had completed this ceiling in the gallery Deon they were romantic soul brothers of the painter he wrote D laqua was passionately in love with passion but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible but while bodair loved the art inside the Lou with passion he hated what had happened outside in 1857 a collection of his poems was published the flowers of evil [Music] in it there's one poem The Swan which captures his Melancholy over what have been lost here and elsewhere in Paris the rickety tenaments the market stalls and the poor in pocket but rich in heart Paris changes but in my Melancholy nothing has moved new palaces blocks scaffoldings old neighborhoods everything for me is allegory and my dear memories are heavier than Stone and so outside the L an image gives me pause I think of my great Swan his gestures pained and mad like other Exiles both ridiculous and Sublime GED by his endless longing [Music] [Music] bodair had lost his beloved Paris but the city created by housemen for Louis Napoleon is one that you can still enjoy today and I for one never failed to be impressed by its scale its straight lines and symmetry but it wouldn't take long for the emperor to lose the capital and with it his l in 1870 he entered into a disastrous war with Prussia France was occupied and Paris put under siege after military defeat Louis bonapart left the L for the last time and went into Exile in Paris barricades went up for one final time as a commune was declared the communards took control of the city in the spring of 1871 a first it was all done in a traditionally festive mood oneta on the 16th of May the communards knocked down the mock Roman column here on the plason Dom that had been erected as yet another tribute to Napoleon's military exploits then round midnight the Revolutionary Fiesta moved on around 300 communs broke into the cellers of the gond Hotel du lra where they helped themselves to the finest wines and smoked the most expensive and hugest cigars that they could find but these may days of Hope were also accompanied by intense fighting around the Lou a civil war between left and right turned bloody on the 23rd of May the Palace of the twer was set on fire and its Dome blown up with explosives the place that had been home to kings queens and Emperors burned for 48 [Music] hours the destruction of the twer left a gaping hole that created this Skyline with its clear views all the way to the AR [Music] Triumph as for the Lou I think that this was a defining moment the residence of Royals and Emperors the twer had always been the symbol of autocratic rule to pisans yet the Lou was by now a different place in the eyes of the people so it was spared the torch perhaps the presence of publicly available art guaranteed its survival why destroy the People's music Museum that would be vandalism and by the time a third Republic was established in the 1870s there was much more to be enjoyed in the museum there were wonderful new paintings donated by benefactors like the generous du laa one of these is the club foot by jeppe derera a 17th century portrait of disability the boy smiles and Reveals His broken teeth he looks straight in the eye he wants something so look at his hand holding a piece of paper a begging letter for the love of God give me arms it reads and visitors could Marvel at this fabulous marble statue the winged victory of Samra which had arrived from an excavation in the aan over 2,000 years old it's it's a depiction of the Greek goddess Nike thought to be celebrating a naval battle she's got a kind of still Beauty and Grace but a flowing drapery gives her dynamism and movement I feel as if she could take Wing at any time and fly through the miles of galleries [Music] the Lou was now established as a democratic space open and free to the public 6 days a week and visitors from all over France and Beyond were eager to visit this musty part of the Paris experience by the late 19 century there was no question that Paris was the cultural capital of the world and that theou was the most potent symbol of this Domination by now it was well established as a public space open to all who wish to visit the artist of the day would congregate in places like this Cafe La palet and the Impressionists were the most regular visitors to the museum taking their inspiration from the past to look learn and copy [Music] here in the LOF is a pastal drawing by [Music] DGA here is a Monet at the time works like these were considered Avon gal scandalous even and as such we're rejected by the academy that still control the [Music] sadon so these painters were forced to exhibit in a Salon de ref he is a pizo he once said to sisan that he' be glad to see the L burn down but sisan himself valued the museum he wrote to a friend keep the best company spend your days at the Lou which is just what he [Music] did San loved to contemplate the work of sha down his visual language his depiction of nature the Simplicity of his composition and all of this he put into his own work but composers could be similarly inspired Claud deusi stood in front of this painting embarcation for SI by Jean antoan vat who wouldn't be captivated by the playful flirtatiousness of the couples and who wouldn't be mesmerized by its mystery deusi saw all of this and wrote a piece for piano Le [Music] Joz and writers too enjoyed the museum not only as a place of culture but also somewhere to meet friends and even sometimes to meet lovers the L was a place of amorous assignation to the American writer Edith Wharton this is where she met her lover the Paris correspondent of the times Morton fitton they used to send each other secret notes in the Paris postal system it was a kind of early 20th century form of text messaging one from Edith simply said at the Lou 1:00 under the shadow of Diana and speaking of mysterious ladies after all these many years what had happened to you know [Music] who the monaa remained in the Royal collection until the revolution then in 1800 Napoleon demanded that she join him in his bedroom at the palace of the twer so not tonight Josephine but in the 19th century lond was back in the Lou now scrutinized by tortured e that smile on her face was surely the oo cruel and mocking pout of the fam fatal then on 21st of August 1911 the painting was [Music] nicked The Heist was both Daft and daring what actually happened was that a young Italian Workman a painter and decorator called Vincenzo perua just walked out of the building with the monaa and under his coat presumably whistling a cheery area as Italian Workman are want to do he took it back to Mama Italia pandemonium broke out the museum was closed for a week the director was sacked and two new guard dogs were appointed Jack and mil [Music] Lord the whole of Paris had a right good laugh at the expense of a red-faced Louver new lyrics were set to favorite Melodies which sazed The Cheeky abduction and these were sung in music halls and Cabaret clubs across the city one dirty Dy found the monaa in a place of ill [Music] [Music] repute which roughly translates as AE gives a kiss I'm not fussy but I was so bored in that Palace so one night when the guard cried close in time I just said [ __ ] you m and [Music] scarpet the year the painting returned to the lra after being found in Italy was the first of a World War when a generation bled to death for France then in 1940 a second war erupted bringing humiliation and occupation and after that there was the loss of Empire so after all of this how to project The Prestige of France in diminished times why with art of course and the Lou had a role to play in a piece of cultural diplomacy in 1962 General deal decreed that the monaa should visit the USA so lakon left lra on the luxury transatlantic line of ss France in a first class cabin cocooned in a waterproof container that would float if the boat sank on her arrival in New York she was received by President Kennedy like a head of state before doing her Duty for France and becoming a massive hit with the American public Miss Maro I know that the last time the owner Lisa was exhibited outside Paris in Florence a crowd of 30,000 people packed the gallery on a single day while large crowds outside smashed the windows I can assure you that if our own reception is more orderly though perhaps is noisy it contains no less enthusiasm or gratitude by the 1960s and despite the treasures within the LOF was showing its age it was stuck in the [Music] past so perhaps that's why New Wave film director Jean lodar decided to shoot a sequence for his 1964 film Bond par to show his heroine odal and WBY criminals arur and France attempting to beat the world record for running through the museum obviously they're up for a bit of fun in the stuffy Museum but I also think this is an Artful piece of satire by Gada a quick critique of the French cultural [Music] establishment so how could the museum get a new lease of life well return to the idea of building again return to the spirit of the GR de in the 1980s it was the creation of this structure behind me here which symbolized the transformation of the loua into a museum for the modern world this is the glass pyramid designed by the American architect imp finished in 1989 it's the most visible expression of the grand Pro of the then president of France fris miton and it's now the per that defines the L to the world the Lou was perfect for me the inauguration of the new entrance to the lou by President mitron this afternoon means the public will now be able to meon was a politician with an acute sense of history and a vanity to match when elected in 1981 he was looking for projects that would be lasting Testaments to his presidency his culture Minister Jac la suggested radical change for the museum I was going past the L every day and I remember being shocked by the dirtiness of the place and its General State of disrepair with all the dust covering everything and I was shocked by the presence of a large carac right in the middle of the K Napoleon for all the civil servants so in I think July 1981 I added a little note to M titled I said to him what if we totally completed the transformation from Palace to museum if all things Egyptian were the shock of the new in a previous Century plans for a pyramid structure reflecting the Ambitions of miton as a modern day Pharaoh created a storm lemon's critic accused the government of turning the courtyard of the louv into an Annex of Disneyland H la la G but I actually think that the LOF came out of all this smelling of roses this time the modernists of one when I look at the pyramid I feel like I'm looking at a great work of Modern Art in steel and glass still I'm curious to know what the Lou's great pioneering egyptologist Shon might have made of this tribute to an ancient culture and what strikes me in a city of most meaningful monuments is that this says we are a modern country we are goahead newom La France Kul but it's not only the outside that impressed [Music] the pyramid illuminates a huge reception area underground and new areas of the LOF have been opened up to The Shining Light of culture including the new Risha galleries in the swing forly occupied by the men from the Ministry of Finance the palace would now be all museum I'm in the cor Mari and I'm surrounded by statues this Courtyard area used to be open to the elements but now it's all glassed over letting the light of the prian Skies flood in and that makes it a really comfortable and Airy place to view [Music] art visit today and you understand that the G project has been a runaway [Music] success before the ' 80s 2 million people visited the LOF every year now the figure's closer to 9 million and this grandest of gr Pro [Music] continues in September 2012 a new gallery open to house The Riches of the Museum's collection of Islamic Art here are 3,000 Works in 3,000 sare ft of exhibition [Music] space all housed in a most radical piece of architecture to Grace the museum since the pyramid there's a wonderful elusiveness to the Islamic gallery's roof and ceiling is it a golden Veil undulating sand Junes or perhaps even a flying carpet under this covering there are great Treasures with Islamic strictures against representations of the human form everyday objects become art a Candlestick adorned with ducks a perfume burner in the shape of a cat both from 11th century cazan in Central Asia and these calligraphic Delights with their messages from the past a lamp that shines the wisdom of Islam a 9th century vase with a love letter written on its side and a plate from samand with an inscription which reads at first magn it has a bitter taste but in the end it feels as sweet as honey and in the lower galleries I'm looking for a special work because it gives us one last reminder of this story of the Lou and here it is the Baptist of s Lou a masterpiece in brass inlaid with gold and silver it was made in Syria in the 14th century the work of Muhammad ala it's beautiful in its [Music] detail and here a coat of arms seemingly hammered on at a later date this is the flise of the Boron Kings how this extraordinary object got into their hands is not known but it was used to baptize Louis the 13th son of aiat and father of the Sun King those great Builders of the Lou and it made its way to the museum in 1793 confiscated from the Royal collection by David and the revolutionaries [Music] but for all this magnificent art there's also a much bigger picture this shows that the museum is sensitive and aware building a bridge between France and the Muslim world and this fulfills France's historical role as an influence there so another canny piece of cultural diplomacy to project just the right image of France in today's world [Music] but let's end where we started with the word with a medieval word Lou meaning stronghold because when I began this journey the Lou did feel very much like a cultural Fortress but time traveling through its art and history what I've tried to do is open it all up literally to l l and in the process I've come to realize that there's another word which sums the place up much much better and this is a very French one very GIC L now this is a word which is a little bit difficult to translate into English but what it's about is power Splendor and beauty and that for me she is the real treasure of the L buried deep here in the heart of Paris [Music] [Applause] [Music] w